Author: Priya Saha

DHAKA (REUTERS) – Six members of an Islamist militant group were sentenced to death on Tuesday (Aug 31) by a court in Bangladesh for the brutal killing of two gay rights campaigners five years ago. Mr Xulhaz Mannan, 35, the editor of Bangladesh’s first magazine for gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people, and actor Mahbub Rabbi Tonoy, 25, were hacked to death in Mr Mannan’s apartment in the capital Dhaka in April 2016 in an attack claimed by Ansar Al Islam, the regional arm of Al-Qaeda. The killings were part of a series of attacks on atheist bloggers, academics…

LINK TO PRESS CONFERENCE HEREJoined by the Iraqi Christian Relief Council, Yazda Organization, and interfaith human rights leaders, Simon Wiesenthal Center on Tuesday, Aug. 31, 2021 made an official plea to President Biden to keep an American presence in Iraq.The panel featured Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center; Juliana Taimoorazy of the Iraqi Christian Relief Council; live from Iraq- Jameel Chomer of Yazda Organization and Reverend Johnnie Moore, human rights activist and President of the Congress of Christian Leaders.The emotion-laden meeting in New York, which connected an international audience, painted a dire picture of the consequences of an…

RAB arrests four suspected members of banned militant outfit Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT) from Nikunja area under Khilket unit of Dhaka on Saturday, December 1, 2019 Dhaka Tribune Many of them not appearing for hearings, may have gone into hiding and re-engaged in militant activities Seventeen days after blogger Asif Mohiddin escaped an attack on his life in January 2013, police arrested Saad al Nahin and six others for attempting to murder the blogger. The accused were branded as members of the emerging radical Islamist outfit Ansarullah Bangladesh Team (ABT).This was the first recorded attack by ABT.In subsequent years, hundreds…

The country’s security agencies have issued warnings that many extremists from the country have left for Kabul to offer services to the Taliban regime for ‘nation building’. With the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, its tremors were felt far away in Bangladesh, too, where fears of a militant resurgence are now looming large.The Bangladeshi government has been closely monitoring social media content and they have already issued statements saying some Bangladeshis were trying to reach Afghanistan just before the fall of Kabul, paying heed to the call of the Taliban to “join them in the war.”The banned extremist Muslim…

The Muslim body says non-Muslims should also not opt for it to “keep girls away from immorality and misbehaviour”. New Delhi Prominent Muslim body Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind on Monday advocated setting up of separate schools and colleges for girls and said non-Muslims should also refrain from giving co-education to their daughters to “keep them away from immorality and misbehaviour”.In a statement issued after the working committee meeting of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind (Maulana Arshad Madani faction), its chief Arshad Madani said the kind of religious and ideological confrontation that is playing out across the country cannot be countered by any weapon or…

Children play at the International Grand Bazaar in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, on July 14, 2021. (Photo by Wei Xiaohao/chinadaily.com.cn) Separatism, extremism should be eliminated at all times, president says People from different ethnic groups said the latest guidelines on ethnic affairs set out by President Xi Jinping are key in achieving equal development. They also believe that safeguarding national sovereignty will become natural behavior when people feel they are all proud members of the Chinese nation. Mehmut Usman, director of the Ethnic Affairs Commission of the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, said consolidating the sense of…

AMRITSAR: Islamic fundamentalists in Pakistan vandalised a Hindu temple in the middle of a celebration of Janmashtami in Sindh province on Monday. The right-wing group members disrupted an annual ritual held to celebrate the birth of Lord Krishna and then demolished the idol of the Hindu god in front of the helpless minority Hindu community members. Pakistan rights activist Rahat Austin said the temple was vandalised at Khipro in Sanghar district of Sindh. Rahat hit out at attacks on minorities in the neighbouring country: “Why do the crimes against non-muslim gods go unpunished whereas even the allegations of false blasphemy…

BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir on Monday alleged that Awami League has become an ‘evil force’ like ‘Assur’ as it is destroying all the achievements of Bangladesh. “Bangladesh is now under the grip of two Assur (demonic) forces — one is coronavirus another is Awami League. This party is destroying all of our achievements and the good things like our independence and democracy that we achieved through the Liberation War,” he said. The BNP leader came up with the remarks while addressing a virtual discussion arranged by BNP, marking Janmashtami, the birth of Lord Sri Krishna, and one…

In the List of issues to be raised with the Turkish government, recently adopted by the UN Human Rights Committee at its 132nd session, the Committee experts have reflected some of the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) concerns about the situation of evangelical Christians in Turkey. The WEA report was submitted, along with the Turkish Association of Protestant Churches and the Middle East Concern in March 2021 to the attention of the experts, prior to their review of Turkey’s compliance with its obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. “We see the attention our reporting gained at the…

Deobandi schools of thoughts are the epicenter of spreading radical Islam, religious extremism and jihadism. In South Asia, thousands of followers of Deobandi ideology are regularly getting melted within Tablighi Jamaat and radical Islamic militancy groups while today’s Taliban in particular is a product of such extremist thoughts. Following the Taliban’s lightening invasion of Kabul and sudden taking of power and it desire of rebranding Afghanistan into ‘Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’ postures fears of a sudden rise in activities of the radical Islamic militancy forces and Islamists, which ultimately would become a serious security concern to several South Asian nations,…

When Pakistan’s President Arif Alvi celebrated Minorities Day recently at the President House in Islamabad, there were more boos than cheers.“It is so sad that no one from the religious minorities was a speaker. It is better not to celebrate it when they cannot utter even a single word on this day,” Anjum James Paul, chairman of the Pakistan Minorities Teachers’ Association, tweeted.Khalid Shehzad, a Catholic activist, shared a similar Facebook post. “The ceremony … has proved that the political and religious leadership of the Christian community has lost its meaning. Bishops or pastors were absent from the front row where…

Why do we have a group of extremists taking over yet another country? Earlier this month in Afghanistan, its capital Kabul was taken over by 75,000 Taliban soldiers. A well-trained 300,000-strong Afghan military, in a few days after the long-anticipated US withdrawal, stayed inactive and allowed Kabul to fall into the hands of religious extremists. The Taliban have strong ties with Pakistan and are allegedly by Pakistan. 50 years ago, just like Kabul, the capital of Bangladesh, Dhaka was seized by the 90,000 members of the West Pakistan army after Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto lost the 1970 general election against East Pakistan’s…